Just Come Back

Just Come Back, watercolor on paper

Oh Rascal Children Of Gaza

By Khaled Juma, 2014

Oh rascal children of Gaza,

You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window,

You who filled every morning with rush and chaos,

You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony,

Come back –

And scream as you want,

And break all the vases,

Steal all the flowers,

Come back,

Just come back…

Juma’s poem “Oh Rascal Children Of Gaza” was written during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge and first published on August 24, 2014.

Poem by Ghassan Kanafani:

“I wish children didn’t die.

I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies

Until the war ends.

Then they would return home safe,

And when their parents ask them, ‘Where were you?’

They’d say, ‘We were playing with the clouds.’”

Free Palestine